


Small Step/Giant Leap

by Laughing_Phoenix



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Missing Scene, trip to the moon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:53:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5467361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laughing_Phoenix/pseuds/Laughing_Phoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle in Ireland is finished, but sometimes it helps to have a reminder why they fight at all. A trip to the moon is an excellent start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Step/Giant Leap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaiosea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiosea/gifts).



The afternoon before her flight back to the States, Nita went into Bray and hunted up Ronan. She found him in the restaurant where they’d first met, near Main and Herbert, finishing up a coke, pensively drawing lines in the condensation on the glass. “Hey,” Nita said, sliding into a chair across from him.

“Hey yourself. I thought you were going home early.”

“My flight’s tomorrow.” Nita studied him. Ronan looked calmer than she’d ever seen him, more settled somehow. The burning regard of the One’s Champion and the low undercurrent of anger weren’t gone, exactly, but they’d been subsumed into something quieter, though no less formidable. It suited him.

“Excited to be going home, seeing the family again?”

Nita shrugged. “It’ll be good to see my parents, but I didn’t really get the chance to miss Dairine.”

“Too much contact for that?” Ronan looked amused.

Nita made a face. “I mean, she’s my sister, but she’s also kind of a brat sometimes.”

Ronan snorted a little at that. “Kind of glad I’m an only child, now.”

“It has its moments,” Nita said dryly. “How’re you managing?”

“Working on it,” Ronan didn’t pretend not to understand. “We’ve come to a temporary agreement, though,” he gestured with one hand, “you know. About things.”

Nita nodded. She didn’t know, exactly, but the Champion had been stubborn enough as a cantankerous macaw. If that was any indication, Ronan had work ahead. “Listen,” she said, changing the subject, “I realized that I don’t have your skype name.” Ronan raised an eyebrow at her, and she felt herself flush. “If you had a tangible manual I’d just use the message function there, but since you learn wizardry by memory, we’ll have to use computers.”

He laughed. “Fair enough.” Digging in his pocket for a pen, he found a stubby pencil and scrawled a name on a napkin and pushed it over to Nita, passing the pencil as well.

“Sure you don’t want to memorize mine?” Nita asked with a grin. “You’re so proud of learning it all by ear, called the manual too easy.”

Ronan laughed. “Okay, I might have deserved that one. Still, just in case.” He nodded at the napkin and Nita wrote down her own information, tore it off and shoved it back.

“Thanks.” Nita pushed back from the table, then had an idea and went digging in her bag for her manual. Tugging it out, she flipped it open on the table and did the spell to display the overlays. She was more prepared for the bright lights of the map, the sweeping tracts of spell residue, than she’d been the first time she did this, but the soft background glow washing what had once been relatively blank space made her frown. Holdover from Moytura, she supposed.

Still, some spots on the map were blanker than others, and it wasn’t hard to pick a prospective location out. “Come on,” she said, snapping the manual shut. “We’re going back towards Ballyvolan.”

“Not that I object, necessarily,” Ronan said slowly, “but why?”

“I told you we’d take you to the moon, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but I thought that was something you’d do on your side of the pond. The overlays, remember?”

“Aunt Annie covered Kit for the overlays when he went to the moon from Ballyvolan last week, and he was fine. As long as we put in the prep work and get her to check it, we can cast the spell there.”

Ronan looked a little bemused, but followed along obediently as Nita led him back to Annie’s farm. When they got there, Nita poked her head into the kitchen and spotted her aunt reading the paper, ubiquitous cup of tea at her elbow. “Hey, Aunt Annie? Got a minute?”

Annie folded the paper and dropped it on the table. “Of course. What’s up?”

“I’d like to take Ronan to Copernicus. If we set up the spell here, do you mind checking our work before we go and maybe keeping an eye on things?”

“I’d hope you have a plan for the overlays.”

“If we set up an overlay buffer to run for twenty minutes before we go, I think we’ll be fine.”

“And if you’re there longer than twenty minutes?” Annie folded her arms. “This isn’t me saying ‘no’, this is me asking if you’ve got a backup plan.”

“I’ll set a timer on my watch, and if we run long I’ll bring us back to my backyard. If we have to we can do a ‘beam-me-up-Scotty’ or go into the city and Gate back here from there.”

“Sounds good to me. Go ahead and get set up out back, but let me know before you go?”

“Will do!” Hustling out to the caravan, Nita snagged some of the paraphernalia that would help fuel the spell, then located a bare patch of earth. Ronan drew the circle at her direction while she ran through the calculations for air supply, then filled in the pertinent spots with his name and stepped back to see about the overlay buffer. Nita filled in the rest of the translocation spell, setting target coordinates and wishing she’d had the foresight to grab a bit of rock when she’d collected Kit from Copernicus the week before.

“What do you think?” She asked Ronan finally, looking over the nested spells on the ground.

Ronan gave it a once-over, then nodded. “It should hold.”

“Great! Let me just let Aunt Annie know we’re going, and we’ll do this.”

Annie, summoned outside, gave the spells her approval as well. “Twenty minutes, kids,” she smiled. “You’re on the clock.”

Nita pushed the buttons to start the timer on her watch, then carefully picked her way across the spell to join Ronan. “Buffer first?”

“Buffer first.” They spoke the spell in unison, feeling the pull of wizardry as it settled into place. There was a soft ‘pop’ as it took hold, and Nita flowed right into the second spell, Ronan catching up and matching her. His tone was self-assured, almost to the point of arrogance, and while it was very different from Kit’s more playful rendition of this spell, it wasn’t unwelcome. Making a mental note to come back to that thought, Nita turned her full attention to the spell.

This one was stronger, iron bands to the buffer’s silk ribbons, and as they spoke Nita felt herself and Ronan reaching that point at which the spell speaks the wizard instead of the other way round. As they approached it, there was a flash, then silence.

Nita smiled up at the sky, darker than black velvet and appearing almost as plush. “Look up,” she whispered.

Ronan’s head was back as he looked at the stars, pinpricks of brilliant light. Turning slowly, he took it in, stopping as he looked out across the horizon.

Nita followed his gaze to the blazing blue half-disc of the Earth, hanging in the black. The white of a storm system scudded across the southern side, and wisps of white trailed along the western edge, but otherwise the view was deepest ocean blue.

“Now I see why you guys come up here so often,” Ronan whispered, eyes locked on the Earth as though memorizing it.

“Yeah,” Nita agreed, stepping carefully over to join him. “It’s important, you know? And more fragile than it looks. It’s a lot easier to see that from here.”

Ronan nodded, eyes still on the Earth, and groped for Nita’s hand. Nita gave it to him, then flailed a little as he yanked her into a hug, overbalancing in the lower gravity. They regained their balance without too much trouble, and Ronan buried his nose in her hair. “Thanks, Yank,” he said softly.

“Any time, Paddy,” Nita said, patting him on the shoulder. “Any time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide Kaiosea! I hope you like it.
> 
> This ended up being very different from my original plans but Nita was bound and determined to get Ronan to the moon. I decided not to argue.


End file.
